Rebounding in a couple of different senses buoyed St. Mary's on Thursday night.

The Gaels owned a 42-17 edge on the glass as they overpowered Rhode Island 82-59 at McKeon Pavilion.

Guard Stephen Holt led St. Mary's with 17 points. The junior rebounded from Sunday's 82-75 loss at Northern Iowa in which he did not have an official field-goal attempt and went 4-for-8 from the line.

That was his first game after missing four because of an injury to his left knee.

On Thursday, Holt went 5-for-12 from the floor and hit all six of his foul shots.

Holt admitted he was tentative in the Northern Iowa game, but he became more aggressive against the Rams.

Said Holt: "I had a really good practice (Wednesday), and I knew going into today's game that I could go all-out on defense."

He collected three steals and a blocked shot.

"He's a very nice kid, caring person," St. Mary's head coach Randy Bennett said about Holt. "But for this team to be good, he's got to forget all that. He's one of our key guys, and he's got to be aggressive."

The key man for the Gaels is senior guard Matthew Dellavedova. The Rams (4-8) held him to 12 points, three in the first half. Dellavedova still made his presence felt, to the tune of 10 assists.

"You can keep him from scoring," Bennett said, "but I don't think it'll keep us from scoring."

The Gaels (9-3) got 14 points each from James Walker III and Beau Levesque. It was a perfect night for Levesque: 4-for-4 from the floor and 5-for-5 from the line.

Thursday night's game hinged on two St. Mary's runs: The Gaels scored the final 14 points of the first half to take a 35-26 lead. Then, after the Rams trimmed their deficit to 40-36, St. Mary's went on a 14-2 spurt that effectively ended any doubt about the outcome.

Briefly: Rhode Island head coach Dan Hurley picked up a technical foul with 4:10 left. His older brother, Bobby, the former Duke and NBA point guard, is an assistant coach for Rhode Island. ... Dellavedova came into Thursday having hit 48 of 51 foul shots (94.1 percent) this season. He went 3-for-5 from the line Thursday. Dellavedova (389) passed Daniel Kickert (387) for third place on the school's career free-throw list. The top two: Robert Haugen with 443 and Diamon Simpson with 470.